The largest global banks halved the shortfall in the capital they will need to meet Basel rules in the first six months of 2013, leaving a gap of 57.5 billion euros ($79 billion).
"Shortfalls in the risk-based capital of large internationally active banks generally continue to shrink," the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said in a statement on its website. The figures take into account capital surcharges set to be imposed on international lenders labeled as too big to fail. Large European banks account for 36.3 billion of the capital gap, according to data published today by the European Banking Authority.
Banks also need to do more to meet a planned binding limit on indebtedness, with almost 19 percent of a sample of 101 large global lenders failing to meet the standard at June 2013, according to the Basel committee.
Global regulators have clashed with lenders over the severity of capital, indebtedness and liquidity rules, which were set out in 2010 as part of an overhaul of banking regulation to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
The measures, known as Basel III, more than triple the core capital that lenders must hold to at least 7 percent of their assets, weighted for risk.
Under the Basel plan, banks will have to begin disclosing how well they measure up to a debt rule, known as the leverage ratio, from 2015.
The Basel figures on bank's ability to meet the leverage ratio rule are based on "approximations" of the impact of changes to the measure published by the committee in January.
The Basel III capital requirements are scheduled to phase in fully by 2019.
